大象传媒

DICTATED TO ME BY MY FATHER , GEOFFREY MARTIN , WHO IS NOW 77 YEARS OLD

Some of my most vivid memories of the Second Word War were in September 1940 at the height of the Battle of Britain. I was a 14 year old boy living at Cliffe.

When I left school in January 1940 I went to work for my father he was the village Newsagent and covered the whole of Cliffe and Cooling, quite a large area. My job was a twenty-five mile paper round every day on a pushbike; it meant I was outdoors most of the day. Almost every day I saw air battles (dog fights) between German Aircraft and R.A.F. Fighters. Mostly the German Aircraft attacked R.A.F. Fighter airfields but on Saturday 7th September, late in the afternoon, large formations of German Bombers headed straight towards London. They bombed the docks all the way up to London, they must have hit oil storage tanks as a huge cloud of black smoke came over the village, blotting out the sun, night came early; it was the start of daylight bombing of London.

Eight days later on Sunday 15th September, very large formations of German Bombers with Fighter Escorts crossed Kent and bombed London, they came back over Cliffe. I shall never forget the sight of hundreds of aircraft engaged in dog fights, planes falling out of the sky some ablaze. It was claimed that 185 German aircraft were destroyed; the true figure was between 60 and 70. It was the day the Battle of Britain was won. Next day Hitler cancelled Operation Sea Lion the invasion of England.

At three o鈥檆lock in the afternoon of Wednesday 18th September the warning siren sounded as it did most days. After a while I heard anti-aircraft gunfire; as always happened the whole village came out to watch. I saw eighteen Junkers 88 (German Bombers) with an escort of several German Messerschmit 109 Fighters. They were bombing Tilbury a large port on the River Thames. As they turned for home I saw a large group of fifty-six Hurricanes and Spitfires (British Fighters). They attacked the bombers, five of which were on fire and fell away from the formation. One was coming straight towards the village; we all stood watching in amazement at this blazing aircraft falling towards us. Then at about two thousand feet it suddenly veered to the right and three of the crew bailed out. It then turned left and crashed in a field exploding in a large ball of black smoke. We made our way to where the aircraft had crashed; laying by the wreckage was the pilot鈥檚 charred body. Of the three crew that bailed out, two landed in a nearby anti-aircraft gun site and were captured. The other one鈥檚 parachute failed to open and he fell like a stone and was killed when he hit the ground. I have always believed and still do that the German pilot, after letting his crew bail out, flew his aircraft to crash in an open field to save it crashing on the village. He was a very heroic man. The two airmen that died were buried in our local church yard. After the war their remains were sent back to their families.

On a night towards the end of September, during the Blitz (night bombings) I saw a Heinkel III German Bomber caught in search lights, it was attacked and shot down by a night fighter, it crashed in flames near the village of Higham. For older people like my mother, who remembered the Zeppelin raids in the First World War it was a very terrifying time but for a young fourteen year old boy it was very exciting.

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